Separation of Church and Scouts

Dave Trull is a man on the brink. After 18 years as scoutmaster of the Boy Scout troop he grew up in, the troop in which he earned his Eagle badge, Trull sees a longstanding Scouting relationship on the verge of a very unhappy ending. It's tearing him up. And it's all because of the Boy Scouts' national ban on gay Scouts and leaders.

"I'm trying not to take it personally," he says. But "of course you do. I'm hoping that ... they'll measure their disapproval with some temperance and tolerance, and say, 'Some things we're gonna do because it's good for the youth.'"

Trull isn't gay. It's not the Boy Scouts of America that will soon decide whether to sever ties with him. It's the Unitarian Society of Fairhaven, Mass. -- the church that has sponsored Trull's Troop 55 for nearly 60 years.

Across the country, congregations and families are wrestling with the clash between their egalitarian religious values and their attachment to the Boy Scouts. The clash became clearer in June, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it's OK for the Scouts to discriminate. But how to resolve the moral conflict is not so clear to many who are wrestling with it. So while the Fairhaven congregation and another Boston-area Unitarian church will probably kick their Scouts out unless the local Scout leaders sign nondiscrimination pledges, other congregations have decided to let their troops stay, at least for now.

Church leaders praise Trull's hard work and integrity. "He's a wonderful person," says past president Debbie Mitchell, who has spent two years trying to salvage the relationship. "I'm very certain he would never discriminate against anyone. However, he doesn't really have the backing of the Boy Scouts."

So, after years of soul-searching and intense negotiations, Mitchell has decided she can no longer abide BSA's discrimination. She believes her 200-member congregation will agree when it comes to a vote in January -- although she's not sure.

"I think because there's tremendous history and tradition, people feel somehow there'll be a miracle resolution," Mitchell says.

"There are people in the church who say, 'Why are we pushing this? This isn't what the church is about,'" adds the interim minister, Judith Downing. "It is what the church is about. We're not living our faith."

Hate-mongers like "Dr." Laura cite Bible verses to prop up their claim that homosexuality is sinful. But there's another view on homosexuality -- another religious view, another Judeo-Christian view. In that view, we are all created in God's image. We all have equal intrinsic value, a gift from our creator. Sexual orientation -- which, according to most current scientific thinking, is largely influenced by genetics -- has no bearing on our worth as human beings or as religious people. Or as Boy Scouts or scoutmasters.

For Mitchell and Downing, the Scouts' ban on gays isn't simply a matter of civil rights -- accent on civil. It's also a matter of deeply held religious conviction. Theirs is a Welcoming Congregation -- one that has formally declared itself open to all, regardless of sexual orientation. The civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s was rooted in Judeo-Christian ideals of universal love, respect and freedom. For some people, so are gay rights.

Which Side Are You On?

The fledgling churches-vs.-Scouts struggle raises many of the same questions as have the struggles for gay rights within mainstream Protestant denominations themselves.

Does anti-gay discrimination outweigh the overall good of an institution that means so much to so many -- including gay people?

Which is more important: an autocratic but distant national body, or the good work of a local organization that tacitly ignores the offending national policy (as many Scout troops do)?